Who Saw Him Die? (11 page)

‘We might have been misled,' admitted the Chief Inspector. ‘Well, I'm sorry to have troubled you – and Mrs Goodrum.'

‘That's all right,' said Jack graciously, leading them to the garden door. ‘Y'know, I half expected that something like this might happen when I came to live in Breckham Market. I daresay some of the customers who knew me as a butcher's boy resent the fact that I've got on in the world, and want to take me down a peg or two.'

‘You've certainly set yourself up in fine style here,' said the detective bluntly. ‘Tell me, Mr Goodrum – as one Suffolk man to another – how did you manage to do so well?'

‘Hard work, bor,' Jack said promptly, and with feeling. ‘Twenty-five years o'bloody hard work.'

‘That's what I've put in, with precious little to show for it,' complained the Chief Inspector. ‘I reckon you must have had a rare lot o'luck, too.'

Jack's broad back was turned to Felicity. She couldn't see his expression but she heard his warm, confident chuckle. ‘That I have! I've been lucky all m'life. That's what they've always called me – Lucky Jack.'

‘You do realise, Matthew, that this new school of yours has no standing at all?
Saxted College
–' Austin Napier's elegantly penetrating voice put a sneer on the name ‘– is, at best, second rate. Its academic record is of no consequence, and I am not satisfied with the standard of education you're receiving here. It may be adequate for the offspring of the local minor gentry, but not for
my
son.'

Matthew cast an anguished glance round the panelled dining room of the Crown. The hotel, the oldest in the small market town of Saxted, obviously served as a meeting place for the local minor gentry. A dozen of them – middle-aged, well-weathered, broad-based, tweed-clad – were tucking into soup, braised oxtail and steamed ginger pudding. They all knew each other, and had been conversing from table to table in loud, cheerful voices; but the London barrister's ringing condemnation stopped them in mid-sentence.

As they turned to stare at his father, immaculate in grey-striped trousers and black jacket, Matthew cringed. He wished – as did most people in the witness box when faced by Austin Napier QC – that he could sink into the floor and disappear. But his father, accustomed to being the centre of attention in crowded courtrooms, continued his piercing cross-examination.

‘And are you seriously asking me to believe, Matthew, that despite the school's inadequacy you
want
to remain here?'

The boy pushed a piece of bread roll into his mouth. ‘Yes, I do,' he mumbled.

‘Then perhaps you will be good enough, when you have finished chewing, to tell me why?'

‘I – I like it here.'

Austin Napier's nostrils flared with scorn. He was a distinguished-looking man, high-browed, fine-boned, impressively bespectacled, with greying hair brushed back above his ears. His lips were well-shaped, but they turned down haughtily at each corner. Matthew watched them apprehensively, dreading what might emerge from them.

‘Whether or not you
like
the school has nothing to do with the matter,' his father pronounced. Matthew sat tense, anticipating the exposure of his mediocre academic progress; that, he had supposed, was the reason for this unwelcome visit. To his surprise, his father merely added, ‘But perhaps you've been influenced by someone from this locality? Did your – ah –'

The barrister paused, not because he was ever at a loss for words, but for effect. ‘The man your mother is at present cohabiting with,' he continued disdainfully. ‘I suppose
he
was at school here?'

Matthew doubted it. Jack Goodrum was obviously totally uneducated. But much as he despised the man, Matthew wasn't going to give his father the satisfaction of knowing what a slob his mother had married.

‘I s'pose so,' he agreed.

Austin Napier gave a shrug. ‘Then he must be a local man. No one outside Suffolk has ever heard of Saxted College – as you would discover if you were foolish enough to remain here. But that,' he added, lowering his voice to a hiss and leaning across the table to fix his son with pale eyes that were magnified by his spectacle lenses, ‘is something I refuse to allow. I insist that you and your mother return to me in Highgate.'

To Matthew's relief, their meal arrived. He had asked for steak. His father had ordered it for both of them, specifying that it must be rare. The comfortable local waitress, accustomed to serving hungry schoolboys who were out for a treat with their parents, gave Matthew a grandmotherly smile and the lion's share of the chipped potatoes.

‘There you are, dear,' she said. ‘Enjoy your lunch!'

His throat was constricted. He couldn't eat. But to continue the conversation was impossible.

Matthew knew that his father, although a brilliant criminal prosecutor, was off his rocker when it came to the subject of his own marriage. The High Court judge who had awarded his mother a divorce on the grounds of her husband's unreasonable behaviour had said that, as a husband, Austin Napier was unbalanced in behaviour and thought. The details of the hearing had been gleefully reported in all the newspapers, and Matthew knew them by heart.

‘Did you hear what I said?' his father persisted.

Matthew rendered himself speechless by forking chips into his mouth. Head down, he began to saw at his steak. He hated it rare. The oozing redness of the meat revolted him. But he needed something to occupy himself with, something other than his father to give his attention to.

‘Look at me, Matthew!'

Austin Napier had always commanded instant obedience. The boy glanced up, unwillingly, and was alarmed by what he saw. His father's forehead was gouged by a heavy vertical frown, his eyes were glittering, his lips were savagely downcurved.

‘Your mother and I,' the barrister said in a low, tight voice, ‘are still married in the eyes of God. Marriage is indissoluble, from the moment the vows are uttered until one of us draws a final breath.'

Unable to swallow, Matthew tongued a mouthful of chewed potato into one cheek. ‘Mother's divorced from you,' he mumbled. ‘She's remarried. We don't have to do what you say any more.'

‘You ignorant boy!' Austin Napier, who had just placed a forkful of blood-red meat into his mouth, sneered at his son. ‘Haven't you read your prayer book? Haven't you studied the Solemnisation of Matrimony?
Those whom God hath joined together let no man put asunder
. Can anything be plainer than that?'

The barrister leaned forward, his eyes seeming to bore into his son's. ‘Your mother and I are
still
one flesh,' he hissed. Matthew watched, fascinated and horrified as a dribble of bloody juice emerged from one corner of his father's mouth and trickled down the side of his chin. ‘Whatever she may say, she knows this as well as I do.
We are still one flesh
. Do you understand me, Matthew?'

‘Yes, father …'

Having made his point, and subdued his son's feeble attempt at rebellion, Austin Napier seemed to recover his composure. Relaxing into a forced geniality he allowed Matthew to abandon his meat course. The boy said that he had to get back to school, but his father insisted on ordering chocolate profiteroles for him, brandy for himself and coffee for them both.

‘When did you last see your mother?' he enquired conversationally as he lit a cigar.

‘At half-term,' said Matthew. ‘She's very well,' he added, unasked. He would have liked to take a poke at his father by saying that his mother was also very happy, but he didn't believe it to be true.

‘And the man she's living with – what did you say his name was?'

‘Jack Goodrum.'

As soon as Matthew said it, he realised that he hadn't mentioned it before. He had been careful not to do so because he knew perfectly well that his mother didn't want her former husband to know either her new name or her whereabouts. Any necessary communication between her and Austin Napier was carried out through her solicitor.

Well, he'd said it now. And surely it couldn't really hurt his mother if his father knew his stepfather's name? There seemed to be a lot of Goodrums in Suffolk, and she and her new husband had made a point of keeping themselves out of the telephone directory.

‘Goodrum?'
said his father, voicing the name with distaste. ‘How could your mother descend to a peasant surname like that, after Napier? What does she see in the man?'

Matthew shrugged. ‘He's loaded with money,' he said.

‘And yet this is the best school he's prepared to afford for you?'

The boy tussled with his conscience. Much as he'd resented his mother's new husband, he had always been willing – until this morning – to acknowledge Jack Goodrum's generosity. But his conversation at school with Ben Clarke had turned him against the man completely. The thought that Goodrum, old and hairy as he was, might be forcing sex on his mother was more than Matthew could bear.

There was, though, the other thought that Ben Clarke had implanted in his mind: that divorced parents compensated for their feelings of guilt by competing to load their children with gifts.

Take him for all he's worth
, Ben had advised him, of his stepfather. And that, it occurred to Matthew, might as well apply to his father as to Jack Goodrum.

‘Jack's not tight-fisted,' he said, thinking himself cool and calculating. ‘Guess what he bought me at half-term – an Amstrad computer, with a colour monitor and a printer!'

‘Bribery …' said his father disdainfully. ‘The man's trying to buy your affection, surely you can see that?' But after another sip of brandy, Austin Napier began to question his son about his other interests.

Matthew mentioned that he was taking a course, sponsored by the school and with a qualified instructor, on motor bike riding. He had already acquired a provisional licence, he said, and his own crash helmet. But the boys who didn't have bikes of their own had to take it in turns to practise on a battered old scooter.

‘I had a motor scooter, when I was an undergraduate,' said Austin Napier unexpectedly. ‘A Vespa … One taught oneself to ride, in those days, but I'm glad to hear that you're taking a proper course. Would you be allowed to keep a machine at school, if you had one?'

‘Oh yes!' Matthew was overjoyed that his father had taken the bait. ‘We're not allowed to go outside the school grounds during the week,' he added, anxious to make it clear that he was thoroughly responsible. ‘But we can go out on either Saturdays or Sundays, as long as we don't just zap about the town.'

‘I see … And is there a motor cycle retailer in Saxted?'

‘
Yes
. I went past the shop last weekend, and there was a nearly new Suzuki CS50, already licensed, in the window! All I'd need would be insurance, and the dealer would fix that for me. I could be riding it by Saturday. That is, of course, if …?'

Austin Napier slid back his stiff white cuff and looked at his watch. ‘Yes, I think I can spare the time.' He beckoned the waitress for the bill, and then gave his son a restrained smile. ‘Very well. We'll go out now and I'll see what I can do for you.'

‘Thank you – very much,' said Matthew in a happy daze.

‘Not at all. You're
my
son, and when you need anything
I
am the person you are to turn to. Remember that.'

‘Yes, I will!'

‘No doubt you'll want to show the machine to your mother. Do you think you'll be able to travel there and back in a day?'

‘No problem! Breckham Market isn't more than twenty miles.'

‘Is it not?'

The barrister paid the bill, adding a generous tip. ‘But you'll find it a long journey on a low-powered motor cycle,' he advised, ‘particularly at this time of year. I don't think you should consider it until you've gained some experience. These are potentially dangerous machines, and I am buying you one on the strict understanding that you will ride it sensibly and carefully. You realise that, don't you?'

‘Yes, I do. And thank you, father!'

Austin Napier gave his son a strange reply. ‘Thank
you
, Matthew,' he said.

His mouth was curved in an unpractised genial smile, but his tone was ironic, and it took Matthew a long time to work out why.

The following morning, when Detective Chief Inspector Quantrill returned officially to work after his nominal day off, he found a report from Sergeant Lloyd among the other papers piled in his In tray. He read it first, and sent for her immediately. Not that her report contained anything urgent; he was, quite simply, feeling disgruntled because Molly had spent the whole of the previous evening knitting a very small garment and chattering about their future grandchild, and he hoped for some kind of reassurance from Hilary that he was still in his prime.

‘You weren't able to shake the eye-witnesses to Clanger Bell's encounter with Goodrum's Range Rover, then,' he said, summarising her report.

‘No, they were quite certain of what they'd seen. It does seem a heavy coincidence, as Miss Bell pointed out, that three people standing in different parts of the street should have been so conveniently looking in exactly the same direction at the same time, but I'm satisfied with their explanations. All three witnesses had known Clanger – at least by sight – for years, and they knew his habits. They told me, individually, that whenever they happened to see him emerge from a pub they always made a point of watching him, to see whether he was finally going to get himself run over.'

Quantrill rubbed his jaw. ‘Hmm – yes, I've done the same thing myself. And seen other people do it, too. Poor old Clanger provided Breckham Market with free entertainment for years … Well, there it is. His sister won't be pleased that we've found no evidence to support her theory that his death wasn't an accident, but she'll have to accept it. Good thing she approached the Super in the first place –
he
can have the job of soothing away her suspicions.'